Freedom seems questionable

For the American with his eyes open to reality, July 4 now has all the significance of an unrepentant liar's promise of honesty.

For he knows the freedom his fellow citizens are celebrating in large part no longer exists. Freedom now means chiefly the freedom to vote, but even that is a sham.

For the candidates on the ballot for either party are nearly always the choices of the men and women with the most money to fund campaigns - and well do they serve their bankrollers. The chains come at us from many directions. Our homes and businesses are mortgaged; faceless corporations command our labor and design our education; bureaucracies regulate nearly every aspect of life; pastors are afraid to speak about politics lest their churches lose tax-exempt status; so-called security agencies spy on phone calls and emails of innocent Americans; and on and on.

If we want a better life for ourselves and for the generations to come, we must reject democracy, which only empowers plutocrats, not the average citizen, and embrace a more settled and traditional manner of living, in which rigid government institutions are not emphasized and a virtuous aristocracy of service is allowed to develop and lead their respective localities.

The extended family must be strengthened, and productive property such as land, tools and machines are secured for each able-bodied, responsible man and woman and protected against easy seizure.

But in all of this, Orthodox Christianity must permeate every action, great or small. To paraphrase the great Russian writer Alexei Khomiakov, only in the faith and love of the Holy Orthodox Church is there unity without external compulsion and freedom without internal discord.

Walt Garlington

Swartz

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Freedom seems questionable

For the American with his eyes open to reality, July 4 now has all the significance of an unrepentant liar's promise of honesty.